Milestones aplenty: Three-sport teammates guide each other to Abington High history

A message to the person in charge of book-keeping the school records at Abington High : don't put your pen down. Don't look away, or blink, either.

The Green Wave boys lacrosse team has plenty of season ahead to keep you busy. Milestones are rolling in one after another, thanks to this collection of three-sport teammates.

Seniors Hunter Grafton and Jonathan Halpin collected their 300th and 200th career points, respectively, in the same game, a 16-3 win over East Bridgwater, in the first week of the season. Grafton netted his 200th career goal two days later. Three weeks after that, Halpin picked up his 100th career goal.

Their lacrosse/hockey/golf teammate Zach Buccigross, also, is five assists away from hitting No. 100 for his career. Then there's Pat Prewitt, a senior sidelined due to an ACL injury, who will resume play (hopefully by the postseason) at 195 points.

Oh, and Grafton, a repeat All-Scholastic selection, is already on a sprint to 400 career points, a mark he's expected to hit later this spring.

It'll be quite a memorable year, huh?

“I want it to go on as long as possible," said coach Michael Grafton, Hunter's father. “It’s just been a real joy for me as a coach, and dad, to watch them grow up together and play their sports at such a high level.”

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The coach Grafton instructed the group in youth lacrosse and then watched the rise of his son, along with Halpin, Buccigross and defender Evan St. Martin on the hockey rink from afar through the South Shore Eagles club program since they were five years old.

Fast-forward to present day: Hunter Grafton is an All-Scholastic selection in all three sports with 32 goals and 20 assists on the ice this past winter and an average of 2.5 over par as the South Shore League Tobin Division MVP on the golf course in the fall.

Halpin received golf and lacrosse All-Scholastic honors over the past year, and St. Martin is a lacrosse and hockey selection.

“We just have that connection," Halpin said.

“It’s been so long" playing together, Hunter Grafton said. "Just getting balls in our sticks, practicing outside of practice, going to the turf during the summer to shoot around, just working with each other.”

So far this season, Hunter Grafton the pack leader with 39 goals and 35 assists for 74 points; Halpin is at 27 goals and 10 assists for 37 points; and Buccigross is at 11 goals and 27 assists for 38 points.

The trio has accounted for 77 of the Green Wave's 140 goals this season -- 55 percent of the total scoring -- as sophomore Matthew Grafton, senior Ian Barrett and sophomore Lee Spry have been productive on the receiving end of some of the assists.

“It's just a representation of how this team plays together," Michael Grafton said. "There are points to be had out there. We don’t care who’s getting the goals, as long as we’re getting them as a team.”

The most memorable milestone of Halpin's season thus far was the 100 career goals mark he hit in Abington's win over Pembroke on April 25. He surpassed his brother Jason, a 2014 grad, on the program's all-time list.

"I was definitely happy because I beat him," Halpin said. "That’s all I really wanted.”

There's no competition in team circles, though. The core group led Abington to the Division 4 Elite Eight, it's furthest-ever postseason push, as the No. 5 seed last season. The chemistry was particularly on full display, Halpin said, during the team's Sweet Sixteen game vs. St. Bernard's, an 18-9 win.

Halpin (5 goals, 4 assists) and Grafton (8 goals, 1 assist) each collected nine points in that one, with Prewitt (4 goals, 3 assists), Buccigross (5 assists) and St. Martin (1 goal, 3 assists) also chiming in.

"That was our strong (showing)," Halpin said. "We all brought it."

“Always being around each other growing up, we knew it was going to work," Hunter Grafton said of the chemistry. "We’re all super close. Playing the same sports all year round, and being around each other all the time, it helps 100 percent."

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Milestones aplenty: Three-sport teammates guide each other to Abington High history